Abstract

A Comparative Study of Advertisers and Agency Professionals on How Diverse Marketing Communication Tools Contribute to Building Brand Asset

Yoon,Kak (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Media Communications, Sogang University)

Suh,Sang-hee (Doctoral Student, Graduate School of Media Communications, Sogang University)

This paper examined whether there are differences in the perceptions of the importance of the various marketing communication tools between clients and advertising practitioners. The results suggest that both the client and agency professionals believe media advertising is the most effective tool to build brand asset and to create sales. In addition, these practitioners picked word-of-mouth communication as the second most effective tool to increase brand asset. Interestingly, the perceived importance of PR turned out to be not as high as has been suggested by a book titled ¡°The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR.¡± We also investigated the obstacles that hamper the IMC approach to be more widely accepted in the field. The subjects picked the lack of scientific research methods to prove the effectiveness of the various IMC tools as the most significant obstacle. Regarding the agency compensation methods, the client-side professionals preferred an incentive-based system while the agency professionals preferred a fee system. The practical implications of our results are offered along with the limitations and future research directions.

Key words : marketing communication tools, brand asset, agency compensation system